The quality of decks for expensive yachts is very important. Typically, the top surfaces of these decks are natural teak wood. In general there have only been a few methods used for installing a “teak deck” or other wooden deck covering to a boat, yacht or ship over the ages. The traditional method used for decades by shipwrights around the world is well known art and involves planking the deck by independently shaping and attaching each individual strip or batten of wood with mechanical fasteners, some type of adhesive or both. A newer method was described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,351,256 filed in February of 1980. It was primarily designed for “production yachts” and involves constructing a teak deck off the boat using a backing material and then taking the teak deck in large panels to the yacht for installation. The installation is again secured with mechanical fasteners, adhesives or both. More recently as teak and other exotic woods increased in price several types of “imitation” teak coverings appeared on the market. These are synthetic materials. The “Shape Conforming Surface Covering” which is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,895,881 filed in January of 2001 and granted in May of 2005 is one such method.
Some shipboard and yacht interior floors are installed differently than exterior (weather decks). They are “double floored” to provide space under the interior floor to run cables and other system components like floors in large building ashore. These systems like “Free Access Floor and Method of Constructing the Same” described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,922,670 break the floor into grids (squares or rectangles). The method is not usable to install a teak deck on a boat, yacht or ship because wooden decks are run in long individual pieces between 48 MM and 96 MM wide and normally at least 3 meters each in length. Like U.S. Pat. No. 5,899,029, “Support Structure for Floor Plates” they are mentioned only to document the term “double flooring” which is now a common method of describing a floor above a floor.
For the prior art methods for installing a teak deck on a boat, yacht, or ship discussed above (i.e., one individual batten at a time, panel system, and synthetic teak), the procedure begins with the existing structure or skin of the ship which can be described as the “as-built deck”. As-built decks are normally made of the same material as the ship; i.e., steel, aluminum, fiberglass, epoxy, or wood. Regardless of the material, the as-built deck is almost always uneven and unprotected. Prior to covering it with wood or imitation wood, the as-built deck must first be cleaned and protected with some kind of coating or primer to protect it from corrosion or other damage. Following the primer coat (or coats) these uneven decks must be filled with a fairing compound to make them smooth and to make them conform to a desired “camber”, “sheer”, and or “slope”. This will ensure water drains from the finished deck to the desired drain locations. Depending upon the fairness of the original construction, this fairing may take many layers. This deck fairing always takes considerable time, money, and adds significant weight to the boat, yacht or ship. Proper fairing of the as-built deck is critical to ensure the final covering of wood or imitation wood is smooth and that water is drained from the boat, yacht or ship.
Once the as built deck has been faired to the desired lines and smoothness the final wood or imitation wood covering is attached to the now primed and faired as built deck to make the “deck”. Attachment techniques include mechanical fastening (with screws, bolts, or studs) or some type of adhesive (glue) or both mechanical fasteners and adhesives. The goal is to provide a long-term bond between the wood or imitation wood deck and the faired “as built” deck below. For some projects the entire faired as-built deck is covered with plywood to provide cleat stock and a more suitable gluing surface. This procedure, normally called “sub-decking” adds more money and weight to the project.
Regardless of the method used, the desired goal of the current art is to provide a permanent watertight seal between the top layer and all the multiple layers below. However, it is well known that most teak decks are replaced well before the teak wears out. This is distressing since teakwood is in very short supply. The need to replace the teak deck is usually due to the early failure of one of the many adhesives or mechanical fastening systems used to supposedly permanently fix the system to the faired as-built deck. This can be from improper selection of adhesives; improper application of adhesives or more likely due to water penetrating from the top surface of the deck into one of the many joints below. Any leakage of water from the top surface of a teak deck installed using the described installation methods is normally trapped somewhere in the underlying structure. Since “trapped fluid” normally can not escape and because fluid is not readily compressible it is the cause of most teak deck failures. Water trapped in a space in the deck can act as a hydraulic fluid when someone steps on the deck above the space and the water forces outward creating a larger space in the underlying deck. This larger space can now accept more water and the process continues and corrosion begins, epoxies fail, fasteners release and the teak fails. When failure of a teak deck occurs for any reason in any percentage of the covered surface, the repair cost normally exceeds the original installation cost because of the destructive procedures required to “rip out” the failed sections.
What is needed is a better deck for boats, yachts and ships.